A PRAIER TO BE VSED before Catechising

Wee most hartily thank thee, O most mercifull Father, for all thy blessings, bestowed vppon vs, from the beginning of the world, vnto this time: for our election, creation, redemption, mercifull vocation, iustification, sanctification, continuall preseruation, and for that same assured, and most comfortable hope, that thou hast giuen vs, of our glorification in the world to come. And we beseech thee to direct vs, that, considering thy mercies, we may acknowledg and confesse our sinnes, which should prouoke thee rather to curse, than to blesse vs: to confounde vs, rather than to preserue vs. Wee haue sinned against thee, both in thoght, worde, & deed: grant, that we seeing the horror of our sinnes, and the fiercenes of thy wrath, may without hypocrisie or dissimulation be earnestly sory, & hartely repentant for our former wickednes: howbeit in such sort, as that wee despair not, but that in bitternes of our griefe, we may haue comfort by faith, in thy Sonne Christ, that our offences are pardoned. Grant O Lord, that we being assured hereof, in our consciences, may through thy holy Spirite, be renued in the inward man, to hate, detest, and abhorre sinn, and to study to liue according to thy blessed will during our whol life, and as now, throgh thy goodnes wee are here assembled together: so, we beseech thee, to direct vs, that at this present, both in our wordes, harts, and all our behauiors, may be in such sort ordered, as, that wee may trulie vtter, and reuerently receiue, the principles of thy holy & heauenly word, to the strengthening of our fayth, to the comforte of our consciences, to the amendement of our sinfull and lewd liues, and to the glory of thy most holy name, through Iesus Christ our Lord, So be it.